The present invention relates to software, and more particularly, to business management software.
Traditionally, the sale of goods and/or services is accomplished by setting a static price for the good and/or service. Generally, the static price is a value pre-defined by the seller and stored in a database. This value then becomes the fixed price of the good and/or service. Thus, when a buyer decides to purchase the good and/or service, the buyer pays the fixed price. Static prices frequently result in reduced revenues for sellers since customers are often willing to pay more than the pre-defined value set by the seller. In addition, fixed pricing does not always accommodate the impact of an ever changing demand.
As a consequence of static pricing, the only way to increase or decrease the value, and thus change the static price, is for the seller to manually change the pre-defined value stored in the database. Sellers particularly have a goal of pricing a good and/or service in such a way that a maximum profit is made while still creating an attractive price to buyers. Manually changing a static price requires a seller to manually determine how to price the good and/or service properly such that the seller's goal is met.
Making a determination on a proper price can be very difficult, especially when the static price constantly needs to evolve in order to meet the seller's goal. Currently, sellers and marketing strategists make educated guesses with regard to setting pre-defined prices based on market surveys and statistics. Although such guesses are capable of meeting seller's goals, the likelihood that an accurate price will actually be guessed is low.
Another method for setting static prices is through market research. Market research analyzes market forces in determining an optimal price. However, market forces continuously change and thus require continuous modification of the static price. This in turn requires a manual change of the price according to the change in market forces, which can be extremely tedious. Another problem with using market research is that analyzing input associated with the market for determining the optimal price is extremely difficult to accomplish in real-time since multiple factors must be considered and weighed as a whole.
There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other problems associated with the prior art.